


I Swear By All I Have Done Wrong

by laiqualaurelote



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 09:24:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17680772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laiqualaurelote/pseuds/laiqualaurelote
Summary: So Amy’s adoptive murder dad is great at lots of things, but he has no game. That's okay. Amy is going to do some enabling.Mild spoilers for Daredevil S3/The Punisher S2.





	I Swear By All I Have Done Wrong

 So Amy’s adoptive murder dad is great at lots of things, but he has no game. To be fair, Amy has not been very helpful on this point. It is kind of her fault, a bit, that the last woman he tried to hook up with got shot. And yes, she deliberately cock-blocked him in that hospital ward but that was because a hundred hitmen were on their way to murder his hospital-gown-wearing ass and seriously, priorities. So yes, maybe she has been impairing his ability to get some. But now they have some time off and all the people who gots to be dead are dead, Amy is going to do some _enabling._

 

So while Frank and Curtis are off sorting out her new life in Florida, Amy does some digging of her own. She looks up Karen Page and everything she has ever written about Frank – which, it turns out, could fill a book and then some.

 

Which explains so much. Amy had figured Dinah Madani as Frank’s ex because of the way they bickered like an old married couple about stuff like who should have killed that Russo guy, like they were arguing over whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher. But then she walked into that ward and saw him holding hands with Karen Page like it was the Titanic sinking and there wasn’t enough space on the door and _damn_. That's what a woman who has history with Frank Castle looks like.

 

Amy tries to talk to Frank about this. “So that Karen Page, huh,” she says that night in the hotel – Frank let them move into one finally after he was sure the five-million-dollar contract was off and Amy has never been so happy to hear a working flush – “she your ex or something?”

 

Frank is folding clothes. He has his back to her, but she sees his shoulders tense. “No,” he says eventually, carefully. “Not even that.”

 

Amy’s never seen a scab she didn’t like to worry until it spouted blood. “Why not? She’s hot.” She really is. How does Frank, whose face perpetually looks like somebody tried to play tic-tac-toe on it, manage to surround himself with attractive women and yet wander obliviously through their midst in his typical self-destructive funk? Amy cannot even. “Plus she’s good at breaking people out of places. I’d tap that if I were you.”

 

Frank sighs. “I’m no good for her.”

 

Amy rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think she got the memo.”

 

“No,” says Frank. He sits down on the bed and starts unlacing his boots.  “She did not. That woman is no damn good at staying away from things that are bad for her.”

 

“C’mon,” says Amy. “Even you can have nice things once in a while. Call her up. Ask if she wants to get coffee.”

 

“I’m the goddamn Punisher,” says Frank. “I can’t just...get coffee.”

 

Amy quirks an eyebrow at him. “Look,” says Frank, “Karen and I, we’ve been through a lot. I’ve saved her life and she’s saved mine, more times than is reasonable. That woman deserves the world. And I cannot give it to her. So leave it be, kid.”

 

“Riiiiight,” says Amy, though she is not leaving it be. They go to bed, Frank on top of it, Amy underneath it. Frank tried to make her take the bed at first, but soon it became clear that her sleeping underneath it was not a matter of courtesy, it was a matter of her staying sane, and so he has let it be and only picks lint out of her hair with some grumbling in the morning.  

 

The next afternoon, she waits till Frank is out on some errand and then she goes to Midtown. She finds some posh hotel where they’re changing the flower arrangements in the lobby, pretends to be florist staff and walks off with an armful of lilies and prairie gentians and green chrysanthemums. Then she goes to the address that Nelson, Murdock & Page are working out of. It’s a butcher shop. Amy swipes a small salami from the display and heads into the back room, in which she causes some excitement by declaring, “Delivery for a Miss Page?”

 

Miss Page is not in. Two other guys in suits are – a blond guy who takes the flowers, exclaiming, and another in dark glasses with a cane. “Is Karen seeing anyone?” says blond guy, poking a green chrysanthemum. “You’d think she’d tell us.”

 

“Why would she?” says the other guy. He sounds kinda miffed. “Hey,” he says to Amy, “do you know who sent this?”

 

Amy shrugs, then realises he must be blind and says, “Nope.  Online order.” She swipes Karen’s namecard from the paper mountain that is her desk. When she looks up, the guy with the dark glasses seems to be watching her. Which he can’t be, really. He looks somehow unsettled, but he does nothing. “Wait,” says blond guy, “don’t you need us to sign anything?”

 

“Nah,” says Amy, “you’re good,” and she slips out before her lawyer allergies start acting up.

 

That night, she asks Frank if they can do sightseeing tomorrow.

 

“What?” says Frank. “Sightseeing? What the hell do you want to do sightseeing for?”

 

“I’m in New York,” says Amy. “Said to be the greatest city in the world. I don’t want my memories of it to all be hiding out in some stinky trailer and getting shot at.”

 

Eventually, they settle on going to the High Line in the morning. “It’s pretty and it’s free,” says Frank, munching on a slice of the salami, which Amy has cut up and left lying around. He would be so easy to poison, except probably for the part where he’s immune to a hundred and fifty-seven toxins because he’s physiologically crazy. “Why do we have salami?” asks Frank, chewing quizzically.

 

Amy shrugs. “It was reduced at the supermarket.”

 

In the bathroom, she keys the number from Karen’s card into her burner phone and sends a text.

 

The next morning on the High Line, Amy is garrulous and laughing, coos at other people’s dogs, snaps photos of the city below. Amy behaves like a teenage girl, a teenage girl who has never shot a man or had a gun to her head or lain on the floor with a fist in her mouth watching blood dry on the dead faces of her friends. It’s a lot of effort, but it’s good for Frank, she thinks. To be able to pretend for five seconds to be just some guy, out on a walk with his daughter.

 

And so she dallies, and surreptitiously checks the time on her phone, and feigns tiredness so she can drag Frank over to one of the benches where voila, there’s Karen, bang on time.

 

God, she’s gorgeous, this Karen Page. Hair like cornsilk, like Amy used to dream of when Simon would swipe her magazines so they could look at the models in their untouchable, perfect poses. Karen’s got those model looks but she holds herself like she’s past perfect, like perfect is nothing to her, like she'd stalk past it barefoot without a second glance. She’s wearing a pleated black dress which bares its underskirt in a slash of white. Amy experiences a flash of wanting to be her so bad. She doesn’t like that feeling, so she checks instead on Frank to see if the whole scene is having its desired effect. Frank looks both like he’s been given something awesome, like a new secret identity, and also like he wants to jump off the High Line.

 

Karen lifts her gaze and sees them, staring at her like idiots. “Frank,” she says. “What is this about?”

 

Frank makes some kind of primordial noise.

 

“I mean, the flowers,” Karen goes on, “thank you for them, they’re very nice, but also not your usual and, well – what? What is it that you want?”

 

“Kid,” growls Frank, “goddamn it, kid, _what_ did you do?”

 

Amy puts her hands up. “You know what? I’m going to get some doughnuts. I hear they do really good doughnuts at this place round here. You two just sit here and catch up. I’ll be right back.” For good measure, she pushes Frank towards Karen. No way she could push Frank normally, she’s half his weight, but the laws of attraction clearly defy the laws of physics so he sort of stumbles towards the bench. Then she beats a swift retreat.

 

She hops down to the Chelsea Market, buys some overpriced mini doughnuts with flavours like House of Cardamom and Pumpkin Pie Brulee, wanders through the stalls thinking of a hundred and one ways to duplicate all this hipster shit for a pittance and make a killing reselling it at “artisanal” prices.

 

They’re still there when she returns, licking powdered sugar off her fingers. She creeps up on them from behind and installs herself in a bush from which she can hear snatches of their conversation.

 

“...is that what you think it’s going to be?” Frank is saying, low and almost angry. “Saved by the love of a good woman, is that it?”

 

Karen picks at her fingernails. “I’m not a good woman, Frank.”

 

“Bullshit.”

 

“No, Frank, shut up and listen for a second.” Karen takes a long, jagged breath. “You told me what you see in your dreams. You never asked me what’s in mine. You know what I dream about? I dream I’m back in the car. That I’m upside down and high as a kite and I’m watching my brother die in front of me. The person I loved more than anyone in the world, and all I can think about is how I did that to him. Sometimes I think I’ve got so far and sometimes I think I have never left that car. Do you know what I mean? So don’t go on about how you’re afraid you’ll tear anyone who reaches out for you. Some of them were torn to begin with. I am not going to save you, Frank. I am beyond saving, myself. I would just like some company there.”

 

“Karen,” begins Frank, and does not seem to know how to continue. Instead, he reaches out and tips her chin towards him. Turns her face so it is silhouetted against the skyline of Manhattan. “Karen,” he says again, like a prayer. “Karen.”

 

Amy thinks they might kiss, and she’s not sure whether she should keep watching or close her eyes to give them this moment, but they don’t, they just stay in this position for another agonising minute that makes her want to chuck something at their flusterclucking heads and then Frank says loudly, “Kid, I know you’re in that bush.”

 

Amy climbs out of the bush, brushing twigs from her shirt unrepentantly. “Geez, you guys, I’m sorry but I ate all the doughnuts.” She gives them a wry, sideways thumbs up. “Good talk?”

 

“Yeah,” says Karen, self-consciously, “yeah, I think so.” She looks politely over at Amy. “All packed for your trip?”

 

“Locked and loaded,” says Amy. Frank winces. Oops. “You sure you don’t want an extra minute alone? I can go take another hike.”

 

“No, I think we’re good,” says Karen, rising to her feet. “I have to get back to work, Matt and Foggy want me to sit in at this client meeting. If I don’t see you again, Amy, stay safe in Florida. And, Frank - ” and here she leans down and oh god, _now_  she kisses him, to Amy’s shock and delight, cups one hand to his face and kisses him full on the High Line for a fierce five seconds.

 

Karen pulls away, catching her breath. Frank looks like someone put a grenade in his hand and ran away with the pin. Amy feels like applauding, but restrains herself.

 

“Ah, shit,” says Frank. He says it with a great sense of wonder.

 

Karen makes a sound that is half-laugh, half-sob.  “Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” says Frank. He probably doesn’t realise how much of an idiot he looks when he smiles like that. Amy would take a photo, if she didn’t value her life. “Oh, yeah.”

 

“You have my number,” says Karen.

 

“He doesn’t, actually,” says Amy, “but I will put it into his phone ASAP.”

 

“Okay,” says Karen, “I’m gonna – ” She makes some kind of aborted hand-wave and then she turns and walks away.

 

Frank stares at his hands like he can’t believe he still has all his fingers.

 

“I think that went well, don’t you?” says Amy blithely.

 

“Kid,” says Frank, “you should not be messing with my affairs.”

 

“It’s clear you can’t get anything done without me,” says Amy. “And since I’ll be out of your life in a matter of days, I’m just trying to make sure you’ll get by.”

 

Frank scrubs his face with the heel of his hand. He’s probably trying to get rid of his ridiculous grin, which is so not on brand for him, but he’s failing. Amy graciously pretends she hasn’t seen any of this.

 

“Want to keep walking?” she says. “So yeah, maybe I was trying to fix your love life, but I do also actually want to see the end of the line.”

 

“Okay, kid,” says Frank. “Okay.”

 

He gets up and they keep walking through the trees and concrete, as the line twists and turns through the heart of Chelsea, towards the hulks of Hudson Yards in the distance, runs past all these glimpses into other people's lives that you might reach out and touch if it weren't for the glass of the windows. She catches the fabric of his sleeve with her fingers, hangs on, and he lets her.

**Author's Note:**

> The title (as well as Karen's line about tearing everyone who reaches out for you) comes from the Leonard Cohen song Bird On The Wire.
> 
> Dear Netflix: please renew The Punisher for a third season and make Deborah Ann Woll a series regular so we can finally do this properly, thank you. I shall never ask you for anything else again.


End file.
